Chapter 4 - It's Officially Official

Now what?

Now that we closed and it’s officially ours, we’re ready for Trip Three. We’re going to work on it until we’ve exhausted ourselves and our funds. We’ve got a project plan. Plan the work, work the plan. Fail to plan, plan to fail and all that motivational jazz. Rah! Rah! Go Team!


Our convoy trucked up to New York, armed with power tools and a gung-ho attitude. We got to the property and the first items on the agenda are to get power and water. Easy right? We could see that the well pump is cracked from freezing, we’ll just replace that. And we’ll just call the power company and get them to come out and turn the power on. Flip a switch, turn on the juice. But no. Because the power had been off for more than a year, we needed a safety inspection first.

With a 4 year old phone book and no internet connection, finding an inspector proved to be more challenging than we thought. About a week into the project (well off the timeline, I might add), finally we got an appointment with an inspector that actually showed up. He told us we needed about $1000 worth of work before he’d approve us. So, we gave him his $80 inspection fee and sent him on his merry way.

Then along came Don, our neighbor from a few houses down. He offered us a well pump and tank for a heck of a deal and he hooked us up with an electrical inspector that was a few towns away. Although it turned out that we needed to have a new well point driven, the pump and tank worked like a charm. But the electrical inspector, Tony Morette, turned out to be the true gem. He showed up on time and told us to correct a few minor things and gave us an approval quickly. The power company showed up at 9pm that night to hook us up. Finally!

We had the new well point driven a few days later, at twice the cost that was quoted. Gotta love it. At this point, we can only go with the flow and take everything as it comes.

Plan? What plan?